Please don't campaign for instance-blocking because a particular post appeared in your timeline. There are better and healthier ways to deal with objectionable posts : report the particular post and the account to the instance admin, block the user from your account. Instance-blocking without reasonable grounds (just because you can) harms the #fediverse.
I am a bit shaken by the aggressive nature of those who campaign for instance-blocking right now.
How does a newly started #fediverse instance grow its network? I have noticed that even when I follow my own #Epicyon account at @lohang@social.alochana.net from here (mastodon.social) and boost posts coming from that account when I think it is relevant, those hashtagged posts don't appear among search results on mastodon.social.
@simsa04 Yes, I will continue to use this account for a while. What I share on the self-hosted instance will be slightly different from what I post here.
Good idea, I will file an issue about the federation problem with GS.
@simsa04 Thank you! Yes, I noticed I could not follow you either. Yours was one of the first accounts I tried to follow. I hope this gets resolved soon. Sad to see GNUSocial getting left behind in the fediverse.
I am happy to report that I found an affordable, small server and the software that fits it better. I now have my own self-hosted fedi instance at @lohang@social.alochana.net , powered by #epicyon . Please feel free to follow me there as well. I don't intend to bulk migrate my follows. I will instead continue to use this account as well, while making a soft transition by subscribing to people that I actively engage with. I am concerned about not being able to follow GNUSocial users. Let us see how this evolves :)
@tk Linode, Digital Ocean, gandi, 1984 and several others that offer "cheaper" prices but do not accept credit card payments. The issue is with my currency which completely collapsed over the past year.
@tk Netcup is the most affordable and stable provider I found, but they ask for something weird : a selfie with my ID card with English or German translation, and a piece of paper with your order. The thing about running a fediverse software is that it is resource hungry by design. It will pull in remote content. That demands loads of storage than a regular VPS.
@simsa04 GNUSocial now supports ActivityPub. So the problem has been solved from the other end :) And that is why you and I can communicate like this, GS < > Mastodon.
Btw, I am launching my own single-user instance on Sunday. Will share details and stuff, so anyone can replicate it if they like.
@simsa04@fu I gave it a try from this side. But Mastodon fails to identify it as an account (or anything that I can subscribe to). This is a known situation with Mastodon.